Since 2000, Cris Worley has been proud to represent Memphis-based artist Maysey Craddock, and is pleased to present waterlines, our ninth solo exhibition together. The exhibition runs April 15th – May 30th, with an opening reception on Wednesday, April 15thfrom 5-8pm. The artist will be in attendance. The opening reception runs in tandem with the Dallas Art Fair-sponsored Design District Gallery Night. Galleries at 1845 Levee St will offer an Ice Cream Social for our guests.
Known for her richly layered gouache paintings of ephemeral landscapes, Craddock continues her exploration of fragile ecosystems and the poetic, cyclical forces that shape them.
Drawing from her own photographs of wetlands and other delicate environments, Craddock reimagines fragments of wild habitat that persist—despite human impact—within ongoing cycles of death, rebirth, and reclamation. In waterlines, these spaces become both specific and unmoored: at once rooted in observed reality and transformed into imagined terrains that evoke deep time, distant shores, and unseen depths. Her works function as meditations and memorials, honoring both the beauty and vulnerability of environments in flux.
Craddock’s distinctive process is integral to the meaning of the work. She constructs her surfaces from found brown paper bags, hand-stitched together with silk thread, creating a tactile ground that is already marked by use and history. Onto this terrain, she layers intricate drawing and translucent veils of gouache, allowing pigment to seep into the fibers and folds. This act of material regeneration parallels the ecological cycles she depicts, where fragmentation and renewal coexist. The resulting compositions balance density and openness, saturated color and atmospheric wash, structure and dissolution.
In the studio, Craddock embraces a rhythm that mirrors the natural world. Her process moves between immersion and distance—what she describes as “seeing the trees” and eventually “seeing the forest.” Lines unfurl across the surface, suggesting tree, sky, and water simultaneously, while luminous color fields pulse with life. The paintings emerge as spaces of tension and harmony, where the built surface and the evolving image converge.
Amid a contemporary landscape marked by rapid environmental and cultural change, waterlines offers a contemplative counterpoint. Craddock’s works invite viewers into a slower register of time—one attuned to seasonal shifts, geological rhythms, and the quiet persistence of the natural world. Through their sensuous surfaces and evocative imagery, the paintings open a space for reflection on humanity’s relationship to nature and the possibility of reconnection. In Craddock’s words, beauty becomes “a way to breathe.”
Maysey Craddock (b. 1971, Memphis, TN) lives and works in Memphis. She received her MFA from Maine College of Art in Portland, ME, and a BA in Sculpture and Anthropology from Tulane University in New Orleans. Over a career spanning more than three decades, she has presented numerous solo exhibitions across the United States and Germany, including at the Museum of the University of Mississippi; Sears Peyton Gallery, New York; Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas; David Lusk Gallery, Memphis; and the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, among others. Her work is held in the collections of institutions and organizations such as the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Arkansas Arts Center, and the Tennessee Arts Commission, as well as numerous private and corporate collections. She has received multiple awards, grants, and residencies, including fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission and Austin Peay State University, and residencies in the United States and Germany.